Sermon delivered Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017 (Second Sunday After the Epiphany, Year A) at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA, as part two of a seven-week preaching series on baptism and the Baptismal Covenant.
Sermon Text(s): Isaiah 49:1-7, Baptismal Covenant Question #3
Last week, we remembered Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan River, heard about the implications of baptism for our own lives, and renewed the vows of our Baptismal Covenant. This week, we begin exploring the Baptismal Covenant in more detail. From now through the end of the season after the Epiphany, we’ll consider one question from the Baptismal Covenant each week, digging more deeply into the meaning of it and how we are called to keep that vow in our lives as Christians. We won’t be moving through the vows in the same order that they appear in the prayer book because I structured this series so that the question we’re considering each week connects with the scriptures from the lectionary for that day. So today, because the scriptures relate to the subject of evangelism, we’ll start by looking at the third question in the Baptismal Covenant:
“Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?”
The first thing we must define with regards to that question is: what exactly is the “Good News of God in Christ?” What are we proclaiming? What is the message we are called to share with others? The passage we heard from Acts last week offers us a good summary. Peter says this to a group of Gentiles gathered in the home of Cornelius, a Roman solider:
“I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ--he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” (Acts 10:34-43)
That is the good news we are called to share: that Jesus was raised from the dead, that all the powers of this world and even death itself could not stop the message he came to bring. That message was not so different from what all the prophets throughout the history of Israel had taught: that we should love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love our neighbors as ourselves. But the one who brought the message this time was different than those other prophets who had gone before: he was the promised Messiah of Israel, the chosen one foreseen by all the prophets, and in him the prophecies of old were fulfilled. And his message reminded the people of Israel that God’s favor and mercy are available to all people, not just the Jews.
And although Jesus’s followers took that to heart in such a way that the Jesus Movement became primarily a movement of Gentiles rather than Jews, this message of inclusiveness was not new with Jesus. In fact, the Christian concept of our call to be a “light to the nations” actually comes from the Hebrew Bible, from the scriptures of the Jews before the time of Jesus. Today’s reading from Isaiah contains that phrase, a phrase that became one of the theological underpinnings of Christianity’s worldwide missionary outreach: God says to the prophet Isaiah, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6).
"I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."
In a context where the prevailing assumption was that each nation had their own god or gods, who were concerned only with the people of that nation, the idea that the God of Israel would care about the people of other nations was a revolutionary idea. This passage is one of several in Isaiah and in other writings dated to this period that represent a significant theological shift – from a view of salvation as being “all about us” to a view that included “them” as well – the other, the outsider, the stranger. No longer did the word “salvation” mean that our side had won, and to hell with everyone else. Isaiah – and Jesus after him – said that the goodness and mercy and blessings promised by God to Israel are available not only to Israel, but to all people. Israel’s role as a “light to the nations” is to share that goodness and mercy and blessing with everyone.
Unfortunately, the way both Jews and Christians have read and interpreted this passage has often presumed that only Israel – or in Christian thought, only the church, the “New Israel” – has the light. As we sought to be a “light to the nations,” we thought we were bringing “light” to “primitive” or “uncivilized” people who we thought were in darkness without us. I requested our opening hymn (#539 in the 1982 Hymnal; "O Zion haste; thy mission high fulfilling") because it has some of that flavor to it. That last verse:
"make known to every heart his saving grace.
Let none whom he hath ransomed fail to greet him,
through thy neglect, unfit to see his face."
-- the assumption being that without you, O Enlightened Christian, those poor peoples of the rest of the world will perish. Through our actions and our theology we asserted a belief in our superiority over other nations and peoples. We forgot the inclusive flavor that this passage had in its original context, and in many cases, instead of bringing light, we brought more darkness. Instead of inclusion, we brought rejection and condemnation.
So how can we be obedient to our baptismal covenant, to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ,” without falling into the same mistakes that some of our forefathers and foremothers made? How can we share the good news so that it is actually received as good news, rather than as rejection and judgment?
Well, one way to do so is to follow the example of Peter and Cornelius in last week’s passage from Acts. Both Peter and Cornelius receive visions from God telling them to seek each other out. Peter receives a message from God that sends him to Cornelius, and Cornelius receives a message from God asking him to seek out Peter. The key here is that it is God’s initiative on both sides to bring the two people together. There have been plenty of cases in which Christians have thought, “God is sending me to bring a message to those poor, backward people and tell them how to live and worship correctly!” – but when they arrived, the “poor, backward people” weren’t so interested in hearing their message. Rather than paying attention to this, the missionaries pushed on, convinced they were right, that God was “on their side,” rather than trying to discern whether or not God was indeed behind their missionary impulse by assessing the situation among the people when they arrived. In contrast to that kind of stubborn one-sidedness, in the biblical story, Peter confirms first that God has been moving among the people he’s about to speak to before he launches into his “pitch” about why Jesus is Lord of all. He asks why Cornelius sent for him, and only after he has taken the time to listen to Cornelius’s experience and hear his story does he make that great speech in Acts 10, summarizing the Christian message.
I find it interesting that although Christian theology names Jesus as the “light of the world” (John 8:12), Jesus also says that we are the light of the world! In the Sermon on the Mount, he says to those gathered to hear him teach, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16). Jesus, the very light of the world himself, did not tell his followers that he was the only light, but taught them to see the light in themselves.
The true lights of this world do not judge the darkness, because they see only light. They see the light in others, and they help others to see that light in themselves. And as they do so, the light becomes much stronger than if it were proceeding from only one person or one group. To me, that is what it means to be a “light to the nations.”
So how can we keep our vow to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?” We can live an authentic life of faith modeled on the teachings of Jesus, one in which our actions testify to something greater than ourselves. And when people ask us about it, when God sends them to us through God’s initiative, we can share with them the witness of scripture, passages like Peter’s speech in the book of Acts. And we can tell them our own story. We can tell them about why Jesus’s story and teachings mean so much to us, how the Gospel has touched our lives, and about any experiences we have had with Jesus directly or any moments we had when we knew God was truly with us. And rather than telling people we have the light and they don’t, we can affirm that we see light in them, too. We see it, we name it, we affirm it, and we invite them into a relationship with Jesus. And then, we wait for them to make their own decision -- and leave the rest to God.
Remember, we promise to do these things in our Baptismal Covenant only “with God’s help” – so we must take that to heart. We can’t keep these vows entirely on our own. It isn’t our job to “save” others. “Through your neglect, they will be unfit to see his face?” No. It’s not our job to save. It’s God’s job to save.
So, will we proclaim the Good News of God in Christ to the world?
Yes, we will – with God’s help.
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